The episode opens with Hershel and his wheezy assistants Glenn & Sasha trying desperately to save a survivor from choking to death. Though they stabilize the guy for a while, Hershel realizes that he's the only one who can save them while Daryl's clique is still on the road. I'm glad Hershel finally got a chance to really shine in this episode. Most of the time he's the wise old Jedi quietly advising & saying just enough, so it's nice seeing him shotgun some zombies in the head again.
So Hershel spends his time in sick bay tending to all of the people with the flu and disposing of the ones who didn't make it. He refuses to kill the poor dead bastards in front of the poor living bastards, so he rolls the bodies away from sight. I have to say I really liked Hershel's characterization in that moment. By refusing to kill the sick in the cold light of day, he's shielding his flock from the harsh reality of it all. For me this really hearkens back to his days on the farm, and how he was in a way doing the same thing for his family, shielding them from the nightmarish chaos by keeping the walkers in his barn. Only now he's taken the responsibility of disposing bodies instead of living in some fantasy where everything turns out just fine. The guy's come a long way from his day's of denial is what I'm trying to say.
As sick bay continues to fall into chaos, Rick returns but with no Carol. After he explains himself to Maggie, she agrees leaving her was the best move, the fact that she wasn't a bit mad at Rick for that seemed a little convenient to me. Again, I can't buy that after everything these guys have been through she would be OK with her getting left behind, and most likely never seeing her again. However, there are bigger problems, Rick finds that more walkers are showing up and beginning to be too much for the fence. While Rick and Maggie tend to that problem, all hell breaks loose inside the prison.
More prisoners begin to turn and Hershel is clearly overwhelmed, with Glenn lying on the floor coughing up blood, and Lizzy deciding its a great time to teach a zombie how to be a sweet lil-pet, he has his hands full to say the least. But seriously this girls starting to get on my nerves! Zombies aren't pets, how many brushes with death is it gonna take for her to realize that? I don't know what fantasy she's living in, but if she thinks she's gonna be prancing around some wasteland with severed walker heads in a purse like shes the Kimkardashian of the zombie apocalypse, shes gonna get torn apart pretty quickly.
But with all that said, Hershel really holds his own, proving that he deserves to survive another day in this harsh world. Not only does he break out the ol' shotgun on some walkers, he manages to save the dim witted Lizzy, and wrestle with a zombie for a breathing apparatus for Glenn, and his daughter ends up killing the thing but still not bad for an old guy with one leg!
But outside, the fence finally gives way and Rick & Carl do some father-son bonding, while blowing the heads off of reanimated cannibals. See The Walking Dead can be sweet too! I really liked the moment that Rick and Carl shared with few words, while the scene conveyed that Rick was starting to see Carl being a bit more responsible and self reliant, also the kid's a natural with a semi automatic! However, I do think it was a bit of a cop out when they dispatched all of those walkers so quickly, and with such ease. I mean if the zombies break in, make the zombies really break in, and maybe have the characters held up in the prison until they can band together and really fight em off. Overall, it was a good sequence that mixed action with character development, which is what this season seems to have in spades.
So the night of the living dead ends and we cut to the next bright, sunny day. Hershel seems to have some new found confidence, Daryl and his gang are back with medicine, Rick shares some peas with his son, and all seems right with the universe. Again, it seems destiny may have other plans for the group because Snake Pliss- I mean the Governor is back! I have mixed emotions about the cliffhanger. On one hand, I'm interested to see what Phillip Blake has been up to, but at the same time I'm really not interested in seeing the season 3 version of the Governor again. At this point, I want to see the graphic novel Gov. Crazy and hell bent on waging war with Rick and the rest riding atop some army vehicle screaming "KILL EM ALL!" We'll see where this goes. All in all, I thought this was a great episode. I love how they are taking the time to focus on specific characters, and giving them episodes revolving around they're problems rather than making it the Rick and Daryl show like they could have easily done. So I'm giving episode 5 "Internment" a 9 out of 10. This season has really been knocking it out of the park lately. Keep it up writers and please, do something interesting with the Governor this time around!
Written by Isaiah Mueller
No comments:
Post a Comment